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Thursday, February 7, 2013

On October 19th
in the second year of the Dali era (766-779), in the house of the Kueifu
official, Yuanchi, I watched a young lady, Li of Lingying, perform a sword
dance with robust and impressive footing. I asked who her teacher was and she replied,
“I am a disciple of Lady Gongsun.”

I remember in the third
year of the Kaiyuan era (713-741), when I was still a child, watching Lady
Gongsun perform a sword dance in Yancheng, moving like a floating boat in deep
water hit by the swift patter of rain, unequaled among her peers. Of all the
top performers of the Pear Garden dance troupe, and those I knew of outside the
troupe, performing in the early years of the Emperor, sacred of literary talent
and military might, Lady Gongsun was alone.

She had a jeweled
appearance and wore embroidered clothes, but now I have gray hair and even her
disciple’s face is no longer young. Since I now recognize her roots, I know
there is no second to her sublime routine. To console my ardent sighs a
bit,I wrote a poem then, called “Ode to
Swords.”

There
once was a man from Wu named Zhang Xu, skilled in cursive calligraphy, who
beheld Lady Gongsun perform her Western River Sword Dance several times in Ye
County. Henceforth, he made great strides in cursive calligraphy, arousing in
it a pool of heroic feeling. That, apparently, is the influence of Lady
Gongsun.

Translation

Du Fu (712-770)

杜甫

Watching Lady
Gongsun’s Disciple

Perform a Sword
Dance
(with preface)

觀公孫大娘弟子

舞劍器

行并序

In the past, there
was a beauty,

a lady of the
Gongsun clan,

昔有佳人

公孫氏

who would do a
sword dance,

moving in all
directions.

一舞劍器

動四方

So many people,
like the colors

of countless
mountains, watched

觀者如山

色沮喪

in amazement, for
heaven and earth

itself moved up
and down.

天地為之

久低昂

Shimmering, like
shots of the

archer Yi, nine
suns were dropping,

霍如羿射

九日落

brave and swift,
like the team of flying

dragons belonging
to the Emperors of Heaven.

矯如群帝

驂龍翔

The drums were
coming in thunder claps

as the audience held
its furious force

來如雷霆

收震怒

Until the end—when
the sword became

a river and sea
congealed in pure light.

罷如江海

凝清光

Red lips, jeweled
sleeves—

both of them have disappeared,

絳唇珠袖

兩寂寞

but later a
disciple came

to spread her
lovely talent.

晚有弟子

傳芬芳

A Linying beauty

in White Emperor
City

臨潁美人

在白帝

performs this same
song,

a magic dance—and
the spirits disperse.

妙舞此曲

神揚揚

I ask about her

and learn her
story,

與余問答

既有以

thus feeling matters
in time that

have increased my wounds
and regrets.

**

感時撫事

增惋傷

The late Emperor,
Tang Xuanzong,

had eight thousand
female attendants;

先帝侍女

八千人

from the
beginning, Gongsun,

with her sword
dance, was number one.

公孫劍器

初第一

Fifty years have
gone

like the turning
of a palm;

五十年間

似反掌

the wind and dust
a dark and muddy

cave for the royal
house.

風塵澒洞

昏王室

Pear Garden
dancers

scatter like the
mist,

梨園子弟

散如煙

the remaining
dancing women’s

beauty reflecting in
the cold and sun.

女樂餘姿

映寒日

The trees over
Tang Xuanzong’s tomb

have already grown
and arched

金粟堆前

木已拱

and the grasses of
Stone City,

by the Qutang
Gorge, have withered in the wind.

**

瞿塘石城

草蕭瑟

Strings and flutes
play rapidly,

bringing the
banquet and song to an end;

玳筵急管

曲復終

such happiness
turns to sorrow

as the eastern
moon comes out.

樂極哀來

月東出

This old man does
not know

his place in the
world;

老夫不知

其所往

his feet are
calloused as he turns

the desolate hill,
worrying that he goes too fast.

足繭荒山

轉愁疾

Commentary

This
poem recalls Du Fu watching a performance of a woman performing a dance with a
sword, leading him to reflect on his life over the previous fifty years and the
upheavals in society.

As
the poem starts, Du Fu is so impressed by the dancing woman’s performance that
he asks her who her master is. It turns out to be Lady Gongsun, a performer he
remembers from fifty years ago, when he was a child. Her beauty and dancing technique
made her unique among all the Chinese opera dancers.

Du Fu
reflects that she eventually grew old and lost her fame (i.e., “red lips,
jeweled sleeves” disappeared). Then he relates this to the Emperor passing and how
the “wind and dust” of the An Lushan rebellion overturned society, leaving the
royal family as if walking in a blacked out cave.

In
the end, he reflects on his own aging. He is an old man that does not know his
place in the world, after failing to attain his goals in government service.
Although he walks slowly due to calloused feet, he worries that he may be
walking away from the party too fast, unable to enjoy it any longer.

2 comments:

This fits well with the d'Verse prompt of a memory too!Oh how some thoughts burn deep -- easy to recall 50 years later.Thank for letting me enter this Chinese world, where I could not have otherwise gone!

Great layout. Thank you for sharing the original, notes, definitions and your process.

Oh how I dislike the simplified, perhaps because my hanzi-mind was raised on more complex. But I remember in school, as the professor scribbled out the cursive abbreviated versions, I wasn't as disappointed -- because of the schrift, they remained rich. I had to keep asking the lad next to me to decipher the character until I got use to the new, faster writing.

But when you think about it, the history of the pictographs is a history of abbreviations.

I prefer the traditional too for its beauty, which is why I use it with the calligraphy font (HanWangYanKai -- you need it installed or else it shows up as the ugly, but easy-to-read default of Sim Sum). But I will note that I've heard simplified is based on the cursive handwritten version of traditional, which is why it's faster to write.

They are actually seven character verses in this case. Most Chinese poems are either five characters or seven characters. However, there is usually a break in pronunciation and meaning group within this. In five character verses, it's usually 2-3 (the first two characters mean something and the next three characters mean something related). In seven character poems the break is usually 2-2-3 or 4-3. I like breaking them up to give the reader the feeling of flow that is in the original and because the verses are too long in English if you use the seven character version. In the five character poems, I do it either way, breaking it or not breaking it, depending on how I feel it works.